


Learning

by lemonjelly



Category: Community
Genre: Drinking, F/F, front door keys, reasoning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-19
Updated: 2012-05-19
Packaged: 2017-11-05 15:51:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/408216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemonjelly/pseuds/lemonjelly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because Annie is a fast learner, and she is eager to do so.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Learning

**Author's Note:**

> Before Annie's move. After Early 21st Century Romanticism.

**Learning**

Annie is learning how to be someone’s girlfriend. She is learning, wants to learn, and it’s not for Troy or Vaughn – it’s not even for Jeff. Right now, as far as she can figure, it means finding long blonde hairs tangled in her comb and remembering to be particularly sensitive on days leading up to tap dance recitals. 

“You shouldn’t have to learn a thing,” Britta says, and she is almost stern – but not quite. “You don’t need to change for anyone, especially in a relationship. You should just be you.” Her eyebrows knit together in a long, thoughtful frown and her lips twitch in a small pout. These are all subconscious patterns in Britta’s behaviour that darken her face in moments of moral dilemma – they are little movements, and Annie has learnt these too. So, too, has she smoothed her fingertips across those eyebrows, flittered her tongue along those lips. 

Because Annie is a fast learner, and she is eager to do so. She learns to cook a nice vegetarian meal for the first time they decide to properly date, and she learns how to make Britta moan her name just so, with her hips arching into Annie’s. Actually, she learnt this latter skill before the former, but is keen to keep at it anyway.

-

The first night when Annie kisses her, Britta says, “Annie… you’re drunk, let’s get you some water,” and Britta is right. It’s after the momentous occasion when Troy and the rest of Greendale’s shabby excuse for a football team finally win a game. And maybe it’s because a groundhog has recently invaded the Greendale pitch and dug holes all over it, and sure, maybe it’s because some players on the other team broke an ankle or two mid-game and had to forfeit, but this is the closest to victory Greendale is going to get, so they take it with vigour. 

So, of course, someone’s got some kegs out for all the underage drinkers and Annie spends about five minutes agreeing with Britta that the flirty cheerleaders are depressing icons of female objectification and then the rest of the night sees her dancing on the table, drinking from a pitcher. Britta’s first reaction is one of open-mouthed horror, and she looks around for Jeff to admonish Annie. But, when she spots him in the corner of the room with a lop-sided grin on his blurry-eyed face, in between two perky cheerleaders, she rolls her eyes and reluctantly sticks to soft drinks.

Annie lives furthest from Greendale, so she’s the last stop on Britta’s route home. She sits quietly in the backseat and slips in and out of drunken stupor as Britta talks about the dangers of binge drinking.

Jeff says, “Jeez, if I knew you were going to be such a _Mom_ about being designated driver, I’d have just taken a cab.” And Britta huffs, glaring at him in the rear-view mirror. She notices his hands wandering up Annie’s bare thigh and brakes sharply at the lights, propelling him into the back of the passenger seat, oversized forehead-first.

“Oh, sorry,” Britta says sweetly, and Jeff scowls, muttering something under his breath, and slams the car door in teenage strop when she drops him off outside his building. On the drive back to her apartment, Annie falls asleep with her face against the window, drooling on the car door.

“Oh, Annie…” Britta sighs and escorts her: Annie sleepily stumbling, Britta shooting fierce glares at the patrons of Dildopolis who wolf-whistle as they pass, up to her front door.

Annie fumbles with her keys at the door; she drops them twice on the floor giggling. 

“Alright, Annie,” Britta says in slow, patient tones as she retrieves the keys. “Do you need me to help you open the door?”

“Britta!” Annie squeals, looking genuinely moved, as though Britta had offered her organ donation. “That is so sweet! You’re the best!” And drops them a third time, erupting into giggles again. She slaps her forehead – “Doy!”

But Annie goes after them this time, too, and grasps them around Britta’s own hand. 

“It’s okay, Annie,” Britta says, “I’ve got them.” And goes to stand, tugging at Annie’s hand. But Annie, instead, all drunk and flirty and nineteen years old, pulls Britta towards her and kisses her. 

Britta recognises the tang of tequila and lime on soft lips – it sends her back, in a rush, to her groupie days. For a second, she’s lost enough to relax into it, lost enough even – and her ethically-concerned disapproving side shivers at the thought of this on the drive home – to very slightly slide her tongue out to taste the tip of Annie’s. Then Britta snaps back, holding Annie by the shoulders. Her face darkens in a frown, but Annie is the one pouting at the interruption.

“Annie… you’re drunk, let’s get you some water…” And Britta hauls them both to their feet, leading her by the hand into Annie’s apartment. 

“That’s not fair! You kiss drunk people! And you kissed Paige!” Annie protests, because apparently the right to kiss someone is a debatable affair, and Annie is the star of Debate, so is pretty confident about this fight. “We would be good for each other.”

“Annie, you’re drunk, and this is not what you want,” Britta says. She thrusts a glass of water into Annie’s hands and guides both her hands to hold it to her mouth until it is empty. 

“Don’t tell me what I want,” Annie grumbles and Britta sighs, rolling her eyes. Still, after she’s put Annie to bed and is driving back home, the three things Britta remembers with any clarity are this: Annie’s lips against hers, Annie’s tongue against hers, and Annie’s elegant pale legs slipping under the bedsheets.

-

They have class the next morning – a fact Jeff had forgotten somewhere in between his first tequila shot from the head cheerleader’s mouth and being crowned king of beer pong. He sinks low into his chair in the study room, dark sunglasses and grumpy frowning at every noise. And even though she barely slept herself, turning thoughts of Annie over in her head and going from surges of guilt to arousal to even more guilt, Britta recognises the sight of Jeff hunched in his seat with a comforting sense of schadenfreude. She takes great pleasure in sneaking up behind him and leaning close to his ear to shout, “Have fun last night?”

Jeff shudders and recoils. “Yes, but not at the expense of another’s suffering, since I am not a monster, unlike some people.” He mumbles out the words, not his usual smooth-talking self.

“Save your energy for regrowing liver cells, Winger,” she says and slides into her seat beside Abed who is face-down on the desk, feeling the after-effects of not being able to resist the classic college movie cliché of drinking games. “So, no studying today?”

“No studying. Dying.” Troy mumbles, burying his face in his hands.

“But, you guys, we have a 3000-word paper in for next Monday and I’d really like it if we could at least brainstorm key points together,” and Annie breezes into the room, smartly dressed and Anthopology textbook in hand. Britta tenses, all banter with Jeff drops out of her brain.

“How are you this chirpy? God, I hate the youth,” Jeff mutters. 

“Annie’s only a year and a half younger than Troy,” Abed says to the desk. “And Troy threw up twice this morning.”

Annie shrugs her shoulders and beams. “I guess I just didn’t drink so much,” she suggests, and is greeted by a snort from Shirley who’d tutted disapprovingly at the football players pressing drinks into Annie’s hands last night.

“Well, you were pretty drunk. You probably can’t remember anything from last night,” Britta blurts, forcing a casualness she can’t carry off as she awkwardly avoids Annie’s eyes and picks at her thumbnail.

Annie settles into her seat across from Britta and smiles a little to herself. “Oh, no, I remember last night just fine.” 

She rifles through her pencil case for a pen and opens her textbook with a calmness Britta is jealous of. And, as Annie looks around the table at everyone with that eager smile, Britta is certain Annie’s gaze lingers longer on her, that perhaps she tilts her chin towards her a little, and perhaps she just slightly licks her lips. 

“Shall we get started?”

-

It is a whole week later when they are finishing up a late-night study session for Women’s Studies, and Shirley has rushed off to say goodnight to her boys. It is a whole week before Annie gets the chance to pin Britta to the hallway wall with her hands pressing against Britta hips.

“I’m not drunk now,” she says, almost smug. For a moment, Britta is about to comment – something like a sarcastic, _Well done!_ or _You clearly know how to turn on the charm…_ \- but Annie’s lips are still as soft, her tongue still as lithe and eager, only without the tequila aftertaste.

“Hm!” Annie says, in a tone that sounds like she’s proved something when she draws back from Britta’s lips and Britta cranes her neck towards her, wanting more.

Annie acts confident – that’s a thing she is very good at, and does it every day. Yet, when Britta feels Annie’s hands search for the hem of her shirt, she realises they are trembling and realises that Annie’s taken a big leap to do this, and that Britta needs to step it up if she wants it.

And she does. She does want it. She does step it up. Holding Annie at the waist, Britta guides her into an empty classroom, punctuating every step with kisses snatched away at the last second, little nips at Annie’s lower lip. 

The moment when Annie gasps and – from anyone else, Britta later considers, it would be weird – _squeaks_ Britta’s name, tangling her fingers through Britta’s hair and snatching at the buttons of her shirt, Britta needs no more green lights. 

Britta hitches her onto the nearest desk and pulls Annie’s pencil skirt to her ankles. She doesn’t think about the unlocked classroom door; she doesn’t think about the age gap; she doesn’t _think_ – a first for Britta. She runs her hands up Annie’s bare thighs. Her blood pounds through her body; Annie’s hastened breathing is all she hears.

“Britta… please…” 

Annie’s hips buck toward Britta’s maddeningly gentle fingertips, and Annie is so wet when Britta slips two fingers inside her that Britta unexpectedly moans, pressing delirious open-mouthed kisses into Annie’s neck, down into the soft curve of her breasts. She moves with Annie’s body in a steady rhythm that grows and grows. When it breaks, Annie is loud (Britta could have guessed) and her hands curl into a tight grip at the back of Britta’s shirt. 

“Britta…” Annie pulls her in close, and her whole body is quivering.

“Annie…” Britta wraps her arms around her but, as her mind clears, she is suddenly struck by self-doubt and more guilt. She immediately wants to tell Annie that she’s sorry, that she made a mistake, rushed things – _irresponsible_. She wants to tell Annie that she’s too young, that she’s probably just confused. Vaughn had told her he’d wait until she was ready – _oh god_ – she was worse than Vaughn. 

Instead Britta just says, “Annie…” again, but her forehead wrinkled in concern.

Out of sheer pity for Britta’s relentlessly self-conscious brain, Annie says nothing but stares with a small smile at Britta’s face, stroking her thumb against the blush running along Britta’s cheekbones – a beautiful smudge of red on her soft pale skin. They breathe. It is quiet. And then, a different glint perks up in Annie’s eyes and in the next moment, Annie is unbuckling Britta’s belt and tearing down her jeans.

“Holy shit, Annie…” 

And later Britta will wonder where Annie learnt to fuck women like that. Or maybe she really was just good at everything. 

-

“I’m not too young,” Annie says. “Not too young to know what I want, at least.”

“That's not what I meant. Age is nothing to do with knowing what you want,” Britta says. “I’m ten years older than you, and I barely know what I want.”

Annie crosses her arms. She is tired of a conversation they have had three times already in the past week, the week that follows their after-school tangle. 

The last three times Annie’s said, “Well, _I_ know.” 

And Britta’s said, “Annie, I think you have the wrong idea about me.”

Because Britta is riddled with painstakingly over-analysed insecurities and a strong track record for self-sabotage. And it's not about age or sleeping with women, but that thinking back over her past relationships in general just makes her want to curl up and listen to _The Bends_ on repeat, and never leave her apartment. 

But this time, Annie says, “Well, do you want me?”

And Britta pauses. Because Britta has been called Hurricane Britta with a kind of depressing notoreity she’d never wanted, and because Annie is like this firecracker of potential and goodness who just so happens to know exactly how to use her tongue. 

So Britta cannot say no, because that would be an outright lie. And Britta cannot say yes, because that would be an oversimplification. 

So this time, she says, “I want to be better at this.”

And that is good enough for Annie, who learns the shape of Britta’s hand entwined with hers, learns the scent that lingers in the curve of Britta’s slender neck. And though Britta still flits between not knowing if learning is the same as changing, if it should ever be something you work at, Annie learns that Britta’s flip-flopping brain can be soothed with a soft kiss and a firm assurance – “This is what I want.”

Britta is learning how to be someone’s girlfriend. And it’s not for Vaughn and it’s definitely not for Jeff. Right now, as far as she can figure, it means not taking every stranger’s glance when she’s holding Annie’s hand in public as a challenge to a gay rights debate, and it means gently talking Annie out of taking every extra-credit opportunity that arises. Britta thinks about how Annie’s hair looks when spread across a pillow, and she thinks about what Annie tastes like. And then, she learns – is certain – that this is what she wants. 

-


End file.
